#swiss culture

[portrait-paintings]

Portrait of Sarah Harrop as a Muse

Artist: Angelica Kauffmann (Swiss, 1741–1807)

Date: 1780–1781

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey, United States

Description

Angelica Kauffmann’s portrait of the renowned singer Sarah Harrop (Mrs. Bates), arguably the artist’s masterpiece in portraiture, is a rare representation of a self-made woman, the great Handelian performer Sarah Harrop (1755–1811), by one of the very few professional women artists of the period. Kauffmann, one of two female cofounders of Britain’s Royal Academy, shows Harrop seated in the wilderness, a lyre at her side and a rolled sheet of music in her hand. The mountain, Mount Parnassos, is the home of the Muses, and the waterfall issues from the Hippocrene spring. The lyre most likely identifies Erato, the Muse of lyric poetry, and while the instrument is based on ancient types, the sheet music grounds the portrait in the eighteenth century, for it is recognizably an aria from George Frideric Handel’s opera Rodelinda, Queen of the Lombards (1725).

The picture, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1781, dates from around the time of Harrop’s marriage in 1780, a marriage to which she brought a substantial personal fortune made through her talents as a performer. The music hints at a personal meaning. The aria "Dove sei, l’amato bene" is sung not by Rodelinda but by her husband, whose longing words must have been chosen specifically for their personal significance in what was almost certainly a marriage portrait. That Kauffmann the artist was also married at about this time, to a fellow artist of more pedestrian talents, Antonio Zucchi, only deepens its resonance.

[mythologypaintings]

Sappho Inspired by Love

Artist: Angelica Kauffman (Swiss, 1741-1807)

Date: 1775

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: John and the Marble Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida

Description

Sappho is shown holding a parchment inscribed "ἔλθε μοι καὶ νῦν, χαλέπαν δὲ λῦσον ἐκ μερίμναν" ('So come again and save me from unbearable pain'), the first lines of the last verse of her Ode to Aphrodite in ancient Greek from Joseph Addison's 1735 edition of the work.

[royalty-nobility]

Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689) in Rome

Artist: Possibly Michael Dahl (Swiss, 1659-1743)

Date: 1687-1688

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Trust Collection, London, United Kingdom

Description

Oil painting on canvas, Queen Christina, Queen of Sweden (1626-1689) in Rome, possibly by Michael Dahl (Stockholm 1656/9 – London 1743), 1685/87. A three-quarter-length portrait of the Queen of Sweden, after her abdication, seated to right, her head turned three-quarters to the left, gazing to left of spectator, wearing a grey and blue satin dress, trimmed with ermine, her left arm resting on a globe which is encircled by a scroll inscribed: NE MI BISOGNA NE MI BASTA [Neither do I need it; nor is it enough for me] expressing her renunciation of worldly things. In the background is a view of St Peter’s, Rome.

[holidaysincambodia]

Traditional dress of Switzerland

[galleryofart]

The Sorrow of Telemachus

Artist: Angelica Kauffman (Swiss, 1741-1807)

Date: 1783

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, United States

Description

This painting, by the Swiss artist Angelica Kauffmann, depicts a scene of the sea deity, Calypso, and her entourage of five other nymphs, playing host to two important guests who appeared on Calypso’s island. One guest is the youth in tan or gold garments, sitting despondently at the table. This young man is Telemachus, son of the famous Greek hero, Odysseus (or the Roman Ulysses), whose adventures were told in Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. Behind Telemachus, a grey-haired and long-bearded figure can be seen. All of the other characters know the old fellow by the alias, Mentor, but the person is really the goddess Athena (or the Roman Minerva) in a magical disguise. Despite these characters, Angelica Kauffmann’s painting does not take its inspiration from a scene in Homer’s ancient epics, nor does it recreate any other ancient Greek or Roman myths about Telemachus, Athena/Minerva, and Calypso. Instead, the painting re-creates a scene from a book called The Adventures of Telemachus, published in 1699 by Archbishop François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon of Cambrai (his name can thankfully be shortened to François Fénelon). In this curious Odyssey spinoff, François Fénelon expanded on and added to the escapades and experiences that Telemachus underwent while he waited for his father to return home from the Trojan War, including the encounter with Calypso seen above.

[theswisstimes]

In a recent Swiss vote, Covid measures were extended, and new tax and climate laws were adopted. This decision reflects the country's commitment to combatting the pandemic and addressing environmental concerns. The move demonstrates Switzerland's proactive approach to protecting public health and mitigating climate change.

[swisscomicart]

Discover Elegance Swiss Design Collection | Swiss Comic Art

Immerse yourself in the captivating world of Swiss Comic Art. Experience the elegance of Swiss design collection such as t-shirts, mugs, tote bags etc.

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Saturday 19 October 2024

This cultivar of Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla var. flavescens (Swiss chard) had dramatic red stems. This group of cultivated beets can produce an edible crop all year round and are known for their resistance to bolting (running to flower and seed). These plants were being grown on a ‘hugelkultur’ (hill culture) which is a no-dig raised bed filled with biomass (wood, leaves, cardboard and other compost) and finished with soil. This feature holds moisture, builds fertility and maximises the surface area.

Jill Raggett

[lalalaugenbrot]

outrage in the DACH region: traditional dinner plate is now controversial tiktok trend

[portrait-paintings]

Self-Portrait

Artist: Angelica Kauffman RA (Swiss, 1741-1807)

Date: c. 1764

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Trust Collections, United Kingdom

Description

Oil painting on canvas, Self-portrait (after Kauffman) by an Unknown artist after an original of Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807), circa 1764. She is seated looking to the left, wearing a red dress and holding an artist's palette board and paint brush in her right hand.

[mythologypaintings]

Bacchus and Ariadne

Artist: Angelica Kauffmann (Swiss, 1741–1807)

Date: 1794

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Trust Collections, United Kingdom

Description

Oil painting on canvas, Bacchus and Ariadne by Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807), signed and dated: Angelica Kauffman Pinx: Romae 1794. Bacchus, the god of wine, wearing a leopard skin and carring a thyrsus is being led by Cupid, god of desire, represented as a winged boy. Cupid draws a golden drape aside to reveal Ariadne, in white, reclining at the right. She is weeping and has raised her right hand. The composition has a coastal setting with rockfaces and the blue sea beyond. Companion to 'Euphrosyne complaining to Venus of the Wound caused by Cupid’s Dart' by Angelica Kauffman (NT 608951). An earlier version of the subject, dated 1764 and among first classical pictures by Kauffman is in the Landesmuseum, Bregenz.

The picture was commissioned by Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Lord Berwick (1770-1832). He was in Rome in 1792-93 with the mineralogist and traveller Edward Clarke (1769-1822), who related that 'Lord Berwick is employing Angelica Kauffmann in painting and I am now selecting passages from the poets for her to paint for his house at Attingham'. The subject was taken from Ovid.

[royalty-nobility]

Emperor Joseph II and Elector Karl Theodor Stroll in the Nymphenburg Palace Gardens

Artist: Johann Baptist Hoechle (Swiss, 1754-1832)

Date: 1793

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Austria

[internationalemeteorologie]

Mona Caron

[bucephaly]

People love finding random natives online and dumping their family story on them expecting a reassuring 'of course you're native!!' Lol

Sorry, if you don't wanna reconnect why would you even mention your supposed apache or whatever ancestry. If you aren't connecting to the tribe what does it even matter. 'I find it interesting' so you're using supposed native ancestry as a fun fact to make you look more interesting? How is that different than any other 'great grandma cherokee princess' person. Especially since you apparently have time to research the history of all your ancestral cultures but you don't have time to do genealogy

And of course when I tell them 'assume the stories are fake until you've got actual proof' they block me.

[folkfashion]

German Swiss duo, Switzerland, by Kanton Appenzel